A Wet Weekend of Mr.P

Hi,

(Wow!!, the joy of saying this particular "Hi" will never age out!!) :)

Anyway... Truly speaking, this post was planned to be on an entirely different subject. One of my oldest and dearest pal, Sounak and I were planning to go out this saturday to Kumortuli (the place in Kolkata where ninety nine percent of the Durga idols for Durga Puja are sculpted) to see and capture the artists at work and their unfinished masterpieces. But it rained! It was raining at 4am in the morning and its raining even now. You can very well guess what happened to our plan.

But now I can see... it was not a complete waste... the day! (How could it dare? Mr.P was after all determined to the hardness of granite)

Once the plan got finally cancelled, Mr.P changed his subject and thought of experimenting with the shutter speeds. Take a look at the picture below:

I bet you will look at the picture again after you have read the next sentence. This has been taken at 11:56 am in the afternoon (with a flash, a very rare thing by Mr.P). The shutter speed was increased to the highest permissible value in my camera and the exposure was also the least (this explains the lack of light). And it was the high shutter speed which made those rain droplets reveal their very precise positions at 11:56 am IST. Yes, those white spots are the HANGING DROPS.

Being Mr.P's first love, my camera enjoys the most careful handling by me. I try not to expose it much to dust or moisture. Frankly speaking, there was something different running in Mr.P's mind when this next picture got shot.

Mr.P was about to step out to our terrace to take some very open photographs of the rain. He had an umbrella with him. But there was wind too making the job very tough. I requested Mr.P to drop the idea (after all it was my signature on the cheque which got me that device). Strangely, he didnt agrue! We came back and stood at the terrace door feeling very much LOCKED WET.

At about 4 pm, when the wind seized and the pace of the shower receded itself a little, Mr.P grabbed that three fold umbrella and went outside. Realizing that the camera has to be kept very much under the range of the umbrella's protection, Mr.P thought of rejecting the idea of becoming a Nat Geo weather photographer and focusing on simpler nearby entities.

Mr.P allowed  more light was to pass inside the camera due to the cloudy cover above and that is why this picture is appearing to be so bright. This is a plant on my terrace that has got a magnificent pattern of tiny leaves which keeps the water in it held within the arrangement for a long time. I call this photograph FRESH DRIP.

The last of the best in today's lot was taken in the evening. Samosas were getting planned and I was the one to go out and get them. Mr.P anyway was almost done for the day but he wanted a finishing touch (something to square his desire for Kumartuli and later a full fledged rain photograph). He again went to the terrace in that poor natural light and started to look for something. What he got with an 8X zoom was this

Little bit of blackening and whitening did the trick (no... really... we don't have any black leaved plant with us). More than the colour of the leaves, its the colour of the water present on it, which came out so unexpectedly dazzling. Mr.P calls this picture MERCURY. I don't disagree!

Well... there were more... but they were no better than the guinea pigs of the laboratories. All in such a condition due to the experi-mental nature of this unknown breed of Mr.P.

Anyway... it was great sharing some minutes with you. (Its always a treat!). Looking forward to an exclusive Kumortuli post somewhere in near future...

Till then,

Cheers :)